Ecaterina Szabo

Ecaterina Szabo Tamas
— Gymnast —
Szabo in 1985
Personal information
Country represented	Romania
Born	(1967-01-22) 22 January 1967 (age 50) Zagon, Romania
Height	145 cm (4 ft 9 in)
Weight	40 kg (88 lb)
Discipline	Women's artistic gymnastics
Club	Liceul Sportiv Deva
Head coach(es)	Adrian Goreac
Assistant coach(es)	Adrian Stan, Maria Cosma
Former coach(es)	Márta Károlyi, Béla Károlyi, Mihai Agoston
Retired	1987
Medal record Representing the  Romania Olympic Games 1984 Los Angeles Team 1984 Los Angeles Vault 1984 Los Angeles Balance beam 1984 Los Angeles Floor 1984 Los Angeles All-around World Championships 1983 Budapest Floor 1987 Rotterdam Team 1983 Budapest Team 1983 Budapest Vault 1983 Budapest Uneven bars 1985 Montreal Team 1985 Montreal Vault 1985 Montreal Balance beam 1983 Budapest All-around 1987 Rotterdam Balance beam World Cup Final 1986 Beijing Vault European Championships 1983 Gothenburg Uneven bars 1983 Gothenburg Floor Exercise 1983 Gothenburg Vault 1985 Helsinki Vault 1983 Gothenburg All-Around

Ecaterina Szabo (Hungarian: Szabó Katalin, Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈsɒboː ˈkɒtɒlin]; born 22 January 1967) is a former artistic gymnast of Hungarian ethnicity from Romania who won 20 Olympic, world and continental medals. Although perhaps most notable for winning the all-around silver in the 1984 Olympics after an epic clash with Mary Lou Retton of the US, Szabo won gold medals in three of the individual events (vault, balance beam (tie), and floor exercise) and contributed to the team gold. With her four gold medals and a silver medal, Szabo was the most successful athlete at the 1984 Summer Olympics. Afterwards, she led her team to the world title at the 1987 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, defeating the USSR in the team competition for only the third time in the history of the competition. In 2000 Szabo was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

An ethnic Hungarian from Transylvania, she was named Katalin, which was later changed to Ecaterina by the Communists to try to hide her Hungarian background. Szabo's first language is Hungarian; she learned to speak Romanian only after she started going to gymnastics lessons. She started gymnastics in 1973 at the Gymnastics School in Oneşti with coaches Maria Cosma and Mihai Agoston. Later she trained with Márta and Béla Károlyi. After the Károlyis' defection to the United States in 1981, she was coached by Adrian Goreac, Adrian Stan and Maria Cosma at Cetate Deva. She enjoyed tremendous success as a junior. Szabo became the first gymnast to win two Junior European all-around titles, competing against Lavinia Agache and Natalia Ilienko (in 1980) and Olga Mostepanova and Yelena Shushunova (in 1982). Individually, in 1980 she won gold on vault, beam and floor and placed fourth on uneven bars and in 1982 she won gold on vault and floor, silver on uneven bars and placed fourth on balance beam.

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